What to do if you haven’t much time
- Deadhead perennials, bedding and basket plants and roses to encourage more flowers. Apply high potash fertiliser (e.g. tomato food) to enable the growth of lots more flowers.
- Mow regularly if the grass is growing. If the soil is very dry, raise the blades to leave the grass longer, which helps it to stay alive in a drought. Trim the egdes of the lawn – it makes such a difference!
Other jobs
Trees, Shrubs & Hedges
- Continue to deadhead roses
- Trim lavender lightly to remove dying flowers
- Give a final trim to your hedges
- Prune rambling roses
- Propagate clematis by layering
- Complete the summer pruning of wisteria
- Continue to take semi-ripe cuttings
- Layer rhododendrons and azaleas
Perennials
- Cut back perennials that have collapsed
- Start dividing perennials (if you’re around to water them well in the coming weeks)
- Take cuttings of alpines, penstemons and other slightly tender plants for overwintering under protection
- Plant daffodils, narcissi, colchicums and madonna lilies
- Pot prepared hyacinths and other bulbs for flowers at Christmas
- Divide congested clumps of snowdrops (if you know where they are!); take care to minimise damage to their roots if they have started developing already
- Continue collecting ripening seeds
- Mulch soil around cut down perennials to tidy, improve the soil and suppress annual weeds
- Continue to propagate carnations and pinks
- If peony leaves are looking starved, give them a little liquid feed to keep them going
Annuals and bedding
- Continue to deadhead and feed annuals (tomato food)
- Take cutting from pelargoniums, fuchsias and other tender perennials
- Collect seeds from hardy annuals
Containers
- Continue watering and feeding plants in containers
Lawns
- Mow the lawn regularly
- Apply a fertilizer with high potash content
- Don’t water unless absolutely necessary
- Prepare for sowing seed or laying turf next month
Vegetables and herbs
- Sow green manure crops
- Harvest onions
- Harvest beans and freeze them
- Sow Japanese onions, salad crops, spring cabbages, parsley
- Continue earthing up celery
- “Stop” outdoor tomatoes by pinching out the growing tips
- Pot up other herbs such as chives
- Take semi-ripe cuttings from shrubby herbs
Fruit
- Harvest early apples and pears
- Continue pruning summer-fruiting raspberries – chop already fruited canes down to the ground
- Summer-prune trained fruit trees
- Plant new strawberry plants
Under cover
- Check greenhouse heaters
- Damp down regularly in the morning (NOT in the evening)
